Iowa is one of the healthiest states in the nation, according to a recent report.

Iowa tied with three other states for the eighth ranking among all 50 states, according to a report put out by Reliastar Financial Corporation, an insurance company located in Minneapolis, Minn.

Iowa shared the ranking with Connecticut, Hawaii and Virginia and moved up from last year’s 11th-place ranking.

According to Reliastar’s Web page, their annual report is “intended as a catalyst to recognize and improve health throughout the nation.”

Jacque Larson, communications specialist at Reliastar, said the corporation likes to promote education.

“A healthy state leads to healthier financial situations,” Larson said.

Every state is judged on five aspects: lifestyle, access, occupational safety and disability, disease and mortality.

The five categories are further divided into 17 different components.

Lifestyle consists of prevalence of smoking, motor vehicle deaths, violent crime, risk for heart disease and high school graduation.

Access is broken down into unemployment, adequacy of prenatal care, lack of health insurance and support for public health care.

Occupational fatalities, limited activity days and disease are included in the occupational safety and disability category.

Components of the disease category are heart disease, cancer cases and infectious disease.

Mortality is divided into total mortality, infant mortality and premature death.

A lower infant mortality rate and a lower violent crime rate than last year contributed to Iowa’s climb in the rankings.

Iowa is strong in the areas of high school graduation (fourth ranked), unemployment (sixth ranked) and adequacy of prenatal care (sixth ranked).

Kevin Teale, spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Health, believes Iowa’s high ranking comes from the clean environment.

“[Iowa has a high] overall quality of the environment, and we don’t have the overall pollution problems that other states have,” Teale said.

The report also showed Iowa has a few weaknesses.

Iowa’s prevalence of smoking and infant mortality rates have not reduced as quickly as other states.

Teale said the department of health is concerned about the increase in the population of smokers, especially those in their late teens.

“We are trying to renew prevention methods that smoking is dangerous,” Teale said, adding that there is a possibility new smoking laws may be introduced.

The report concluded that the nation’s health has improved by 12.7 percent since 1990 and is up 2.1 percent from last year.

All but one of the states, Oklahoma, showed an overall improvement since 1990.

States ranking at the top of the 1998 report are Minnesota (1), New Hampshire (2), Colorado (3), Wisconsin (3) and Utah (3).

States ranking at the bottom include Mississippi (50), Arkansas (48) and Louisiana (48).

Only eight states improved from last year’s statistics, four states remained the same, and the other 38 states had lower scores.

The Web page said the report provides a snapshot of each state and establishes a baseline for monitoring changes over time.

The department of health uses these guidelines to structure plans for a program titled “Healthy People 2010.”

“Healthy People 2010 is a process set up where several groups of people get together and set goals to be met by 2010,” Teale said.

“It gives us something to shoot for,” he said.